Rap Almanac Visualization

2011

A data visualization project

I was an intern for Tahir Hemphill, an Eyebeam resident at that time. I was tasked with finding the right kind of technology to visualize the massive database of hip hop lyrics he had compiled. I played around with Processing and web apps like Many Eyes. I came across ProtoVis (the precursor for D3) and worked with Tahir to format his database to play nice with the constraints of ProtoVis. The resulting visualizations were created and one of them was even exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art’s Talk to Me exhibit.